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CIE0425 Written Evidence Submitted by Colleges West Midlands

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CIE0425 Written Evidence Submitted by Colleges West Midlands CIE0425 Written evidence submitted by Colleges West Midlands The House of Commons Education Committee - Impact of Covid19 The House of Commons Education Select Committee is undertaking a wide ranging inquiry in to the impact of COVID-19, and how the Department of Education is dealing with it. You can see the webpage for it here. Summary Colleges West Midlands (CWM) is an umbrella organisation funded by, and supporting, the 21 colleges in the three LEP areas within the West Midlands Combined Authority. The member colleges are: Birmingham Metropolitan Burton and South Derbyshire City of Wolverhampton College College College Coventry College Dudley College of Technology Fircroft College Halesowen College Heart of Worcestershire Hereward College College Joseph Chamberlain Kidderminster College National College for Advanced College Transport & Infrastructure North Warwickshire & Sandwell College Solihull College & University South Leicestershire Centre College South and City College South Staffordshire College Telford College Birmingham University College Walsall College Warwickshire College Group Birmingham The colleges see benefits in working collaboratively and through CWM can have an interface with other key stakeholders like the WMCA and Education and Skills Funding Agency. The colleges are at the heart of their local communities and operate out of 96 campuses. The national shutdown put into effect by the UK government in March 2020 to tackle the Covid-19 outbreak has had a profound effect on colleges and their students. Media and language suggests colleges are closed which is CIE0425 far from the truth. The majority of buildings may be but education has continued online and, for a few students, in person. They have led a positive response in their communities including, donating their own PPE, making PPE, offering their facilities and carparks for testing sites, NHS parking, ambulance staff training and donating their food supplies to food banks. Colleges have worked flexibly to support all learners and engaged with family and carers to do this as effectively as possible with a particular focus on the more vulnerable or disadvantaged learners. This has at times meant trips to college sites to collect various items of equipment (IT, Musical instruments etc.) and delivering them to learners at home. A time consuming and costly process. Colleges are proactive and need to plan their actions as they are large employers in their own right with all of the attendant responsibilities for their own work force. The communications and decisions have at times hampered planning and swift action; decisions on closure, opening and award of qualifications to name a few. Colleges are not homogenous and CWM covers the range GFE’s, Sixth Form and a National College. Funding income and risk presented by Covid-19, varies depending on the delivery profile of a college. Those that have responded to Government policy and requests to diversify and grow areas of provision like apprenticeships and HE are suffering more of a negative impact. Employers are more focused on survival of their own organisations which seems to be resulting in the cessation of apprentices and decisions to stop recruitment until an economic recovery is visible. College income will be severely affected and as a consequence their ability to retain their specialist teaching resource. It is possible that without some form of intervention to the existing system key sectors like engineering and construction will find colleges are not in a position to respond to employers and support local economic growth when employers are ready. Similarly, HE will be affected by reductions across the board and especially international students. The funding pressures and financial resilience of the sector are real. Colleges support a something for something approach. The funding mechanism is complicated by the different requirements for each programme. Colleges would appreciate an ability to replace lost activity (Apprenticeships and FE) by delivering to the increase demand from young people not accessing university or apprenticeships and using redirected apprenticeship/HE staff to do this. This will reduce the burden of lead in times in realigning staffing with new delivery models including redundancy and recruitment costs. Also any response that eases cash flow at this time is also helpful, either by reviewing the funding profile or paying 16-18 growth in year and not on a lagged funding basis. Colleges are at the heart of their communities and want to remain so. The uncertainty and risks associated with income and the increased costs of delivery associated with Covid-19; building reconfiguration and signage as well as PPE, cleaning and hand sanitisers/soaps are creating real pressures for the sector. The response sets out more detailed evidence across these areas. Introduction Colleges West Midlands is an umbrella organisation funded by and supporting the 21 colleges in the three LEP areas within the West Midlands Combined Authority. The colleges see benefits in working collaboratively and through CWM can have an interface with other key stakeholders like the WMCA and Education and Skills Funding Agency. This collaborative approach has been in development over several years but led to the development of two bids to the national DfE College Collaboration Fund to address issues that had arisen or were escalating as a consequence of the pandemic to share practice and experience in trialing approaches to track and intervene to reduce NEET and to support staff CPD in developing synchronous learning techniques to enhance the delivery to learners in a more blended delivery model. CIE0425 The colleges are at the heart of their local communities and operate out of 96 campuses. The national shutdown put into effect by the UK government in March 2020 to tackle the Covid-19 outbreak has had a profound effect on colleges and their students. Media and language suggests colleges are closed which is far from the truth. The majority of buildings may be but education has continued online and, for a few students, in person. They have led a positive response in their communities including, donating their own PPE, making PPE, offering their facilities and carparks for testing sites, NHS parking, ambulance staff training and donating their food supplies to food banks. CWM would like to contribute to the evidence base for the Committee in pertinent areas to ensure FE is appropriately supported. The implementation of the critical workers policy, including how consistently the definition of ‘critical’ work is being applied across the country and how schools are supported to remain open for children of critical workers Colleges have offered to accommodate the children of critical workers and have used the definitions flexibly to ensure that key workers are able to work. This has generally been offered together with the arrangements for students with an EHCP. Most colleges have contacted parents and provided options to them. In view of the age of college students (over 16 for most colleges) there has been a mixed picture of take-up. There are many colleges with campuses open for these students but many colleges have made provision for on-line and home study and have only kept buildings open where needed. The capacity of children’s services to support vulnerable children and young people. N/A The effect of provider closure on the early years sector, including reference to: ● Children’s early development ● The early years funded entitlement and the childcare market N/A The effect of cancelling formal exams, including the fairness of qualifications awarded and pupils’ progression to the next stage of education or employment Cancelling examinations, whilst understandable, has created serious difficulties for very many colleges. Ofqual passed the task to the Awarding Organisations which has been problematic. They then took some time to determine their approach and whether certain qualifications would be calculated grades or still require students to attend assessments. There have also been instances where Awarding Organisations have amended required assessment methods with very little notice to colleges. This resulted in very tight timeframes for completion of activity in order to not jeopardise timely achievement and progression for the learners. CIE0425 The challenge was exacerbated by the sheer volume of examinations assessments and grading and the fact that individual teachers have had to undertake a very significant amount of work individually with limited scope to be assisted due to the lockdown. This ‘emergency’ approach on this scale creates a challenge to benchmark across individual staff and ensure the outcomes are fair for learners. It also disadvantages poorer students who do not have the facilities and equipment to study at home and therefore often do less well in their work during the year but are supported to revise and improve for exams. Whilst GCSEs and A Levels, although requiring considerable work, are more straightforward to provide estimated/assessed grades, this is far more difficult with many vocational courses. Many courses cannot be assessed or awarded and still require examinations and competency, skills assessments. The majority of students should be able to progress with their award into further study or employment. However, for some college students having missed some key elements of their studies (especially practical skills based elements) there will have to be an additional input of work to support them at the beginning of the year otherwise they may struggle at the next level. We would suggest that lessons are learned through this period for any future emergencies and a comprehensive and agreed communication plan is put in place to ensure a managed approach for colleges, especially for technical and vocational qualifications where there are a large number of awarding organisations and qualifications. Support for pupils and families during closures, including: The consistency of messaging from schools and further and higher education providers on remote learning Colleges were quick to move to online delivery models which have gone very well, with some innovative approaches developed.
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